Products and Services

Back to: How to Write a Show-Stopping Business Plan Step-by-Step

What exactly will your business be providing?

Some businesses will offer:

1. 1. • a single product or a single service,
      • multiple products or services,
      • or a mixture of the two.
   For example a nutritionist may offer a single “healthy eating” consultation (service), 

and

1.  a weight-loss online course (product) 

and

1.  also sell vitamin supplements (products).

By having a clear understanding of the different kinds of products and/or services you will be offering, you should be able to more easily:

1. 1. • identify your customers’ needs
      • plan your marketing
      • understand your operational requirements
      • set your pricing
      • define your sales cycles
      • see opportunities to diversify or streamline your offerings
   That’s a lot of information to be derived from a relatively simple activity. We won’t be tackling all those things in the Business Plan, but by going through the process of identifying your products and services clearly, you can then use that information in the future as you need it.

So what products or services will you be offering?

1. The key at this point is to keep your list of services or products as simple – but useful – as possible. We are going to be using this list to think about pricing, identifying clients, marketing plans, selling and tracking income so it is important to come up with a list that breaks the elements down to the detail that helps you the most with those processes whilst not being overwhelming.

Think about:

1. 1. • recurring vs one-off services
      • bulk product sales vs single product sales
      • specialised services
      • service and/or product packages
      • commercial vs domestic services/products

Let’s see what our Case Studies came up with:

1. 1. • Geoff offers specialised classic car restoration services, he has no products but lists his services as two broad categories: bodywork services and mechanical services.
      • Jennifer is purchasing a health food store and providing a mobile food delivery service. She initially keeps her list simple too: food products (fresh and stored); other merchandise (supplements, books, candles, homeopathic products); and organic food delivery service.
      • Mike’s is a single service (commercial office cleaning) but he has decided to break down the services more so it’ll be easier to track income in the future. He decides on: M-F nightly clean, weekly clean, and special services ie carpet cleaning, one-off “deep-clean” for vacating businesses, etc.
      • Cindi and Wayne offer: commercial concreting and domestic concreting services. These each include laying new driveways, filling new foundations, and fixing failing concrete etc. They also offer a very restricted specialised service creating ornamental concrete features for use in back yards and office common areas.

After her initial draft, Jennifer decided to rework her list a little

1. She decided to split out nutritional supplements (as those sales were a major income source) and list a forgotten minor service (health store rental space) that she has decided to more actively promote. This is her second draft [you’ll find a template for this table in the worksheet]:

Activity

1. It’s now time for you to brain-storm what products and/or services you will be offering. Start simple and then add a little more complexity

if you feel it will be useful for you

. However, you don’t need to list every single item at this point. Aim for 1-10 products and/or services maximum.